Holiday Peppermint Affogato

Posted on 12/19/2017

If you’re not familiar with our favorite coffee dessert, Affogatos, let me explain what they are. An Affogato (means “drowned” in Italian) is a coffee-based dessert comprised of a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with a shot of hot espresso. Sounds great, right? Well, they are. They have been one of our favorite treats since we discovered them a few years ago. We’re always shocked to hear that most people don’t know what they are. We’ve introduced countless friends and even our mom and my boyfriend’s dad to Affogatos. We just got a Starbucks Reserve by our place and they have the best affogatos in our opinion so if you’re close to an Sbux reserve, you must go.

When we were planning our holiday content, we immediately knew we wanted to create a holiday-themed affogato with peppermint ice cream as the base. We had an idea that the minty coolness of the ice cream would pair perfectly with the hot coffee and we were right. Like I mentioned before, classic affogatos are made with espresso but we figured most people don’t have espresso machines at home so we used normal coffee with this recipe. I will say, we have a Nespresso coffee maker and it has a “specialty brew” setting which basically turns coffee into espresso consistency and strength so if you have the same machine, we recommend using that setting. But for this recipe, we just brewed normal coffee!

To find out how to make this seasonal dessert that is perfect for holiday gatherings, then just keep reading!

First, you’ll want to make your coffee to have it ready. Like I mentioned, normally affogatos are made with espresso but since most people don’t have espresso machines, coffee works great in this recipe. We recommend you use a medium or dark roast and nothing “flavored” since we will be adding a lot of sweetness with the ice cream.

Next, you need to melt your chocolate chips. This is just for the rim of the glasses so you don’t need a lot in your bowl, but it has to be enough to cover the rim. Melt the chips in 30-second increments until fully melted. Don’t do it for longer or you risk them burning!

After the chips are melted, dip your glass into the chocolate and move it around side to side to make sure it’s covered. Immediately after rimming your glass with chocolate, dip into the broken up candy cane pieces. Place in the freezer immediately after the rim is done. We found that if you don’t set the chocolate the candy pieces are too heavy and they just fall down the side of the glass. You’ll want to keep the glass(es) in the freezer for at least 15 minutes to allow the rim to set.

After the chocolate has set, get your ice cream out and use a cookie scoop (not an ice cream scoop) to scoop 3 scoops of your peppermint ice cream into your glass.

Last but not least, pour your coffee over the ice cream scoops. Pour enough so that the ice cream is 80% covered. If you want it to be more liquid than solid, then feel free to add more coffee. The ice cream does melt pretty fast so we didn’t want to douse the ice cream with coffee.

Enjoy with a spoon or just sip it like a coffee beverage. Let us know if you try out our recipe for holiday entertaining!